I actually love macro photography. It mostly gets used on flowers. I understand this. Flowers are beautiful. They have great colour. Their shapes are fascinating and a lovely blend of geometry and biology. Somewhere deep in our beings we are either biologically hardwired or spiritually inspired to appreciate them- probably both. I fall victim to the temptation myself sometimes.

There’s way cooler stuff out there to get up close and personal with though. Like creepy insects. My favourite macro lens is actually my Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 USM Macro- an absolutely fantastic piece of glassware which unfortunately, due to its EF-S demarcation, only works with the XXXD range of EOS cameras, and not my EOS 5D. As a result, I don’t have an equitable macro lens for my full-frame camera (now my main workhorse), and so these shots are taken with the macro function on the EF 50mm f/1.8- which works well for depth-of-field effect at the open end, but which has a slow, softer focus and not a fraction of the macro-esque magnificence of the aforementioned 60mm. Hence fewer of this sort of image, and the not-s0-macro closeup goodness that the 60mm has offered on other occasions.

For example, these first three photos (respectively: a Praying Mantis with an M&M, a Dead Ant, and the Zip on my Cargo Pants taken in an airport waiting lounge in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, because, why not?) are all taken with the 60mm. They’re golden oldies in my photo collection now, but I’m very fond of them all the same.

The rest, below, were taken more recently. I’d like to point out that the Florida panhandle has some MASSIVE insects, and I missed some great opportunities, for example a psychadelic cricket darn-well near the length of my forearm, and the infamous ‘cow-killer’ ant- actually a very aggressive species of flightless wasp. However, I did love the colour scheme on this spider we found outside the team house- which I’m fairly sure, if the rest of nature is to be trusted, means that it is toxic enough to kill you just by smelling it.

This second spider, on the same property, I’ve included for sheer creep-out value. I didn’t need a macro lens to capture its grotesquery.

On the more attractive end of the spectrum, this butterfly was gracious enough to SITTHEHELLSTILL for just long enough for me to get this grab- and make me crave for a 200mm telephoto lens so that I could catch these beauties and not keep disturbing them.

This is not macro but macaroon- and isn’t remarkably small, either. It is, however, a nice use of depth-of-field and I didn’t have another post to stick it in. I hope it inspires you to new and greater desserts.

But such a tempting one. They stand still. You can take as long as you like to frame them up to get the shot you want. They’re generally not far from your front door, so you don’t have to travel far. They’ve got interesting and attractive shapes. And they’re so colourful. So it’s hard to overcome the drive.

It’s hard to be original with flower photography, of course. Namely because there’s such a plethora of photographers with macro lenses lining up at the nearest flower-bed. It’s all been done. Abstracts. Extreme close-ups. Shallow depth-of-field. Basically, if you’ve got the right kit and the patience, you too can take a technically excellent but artistically unremarkable flower photograph.

Forgive my little spin of sarcasm. There are some beautiful flower photos out there. Hunt around on flickr, for one, and you can find some exceptional examples. Or, of course, National Geographic. They’re just hard to find amidst all the other hack photographers (like me) happy-snapping their way around the botanical gardens.

My handful of offerings below are nothing special or unique. I’m guilty of all the above criticisms. Not an original image in the set. But, one way or another, they’re pictures of flowers I find somehow visually satisfying. Perhaps it’s the way in which early-morning contrast throws background into near-darkness, leaving the subject framed in sunlight. Maybe it’s the way repeating shapes and colours slowly fade out of sharpness with a wide aperture. It could be the delicate splash of intense colour against an otherwise plain background, or the satisfying hit of fractal biology writ large across the frame. I guess that somewhere in our make-up- whether it’s the legacy of an evolution that once saw us sharing a common ancestor with bees, or some gift of a Creator who wants us to enjoy the beauty of the universe- flowers just work for us.

I came across this bud just breaking open as a new morning dawned in northern Thailand. The air was cool and damp, and the light softened by a heavy blanket of mist, which was perfect for some of this close-up photography. I really loved the way the bud seemed to be struggling not just against its own leaves, but the web that was wrapped around it. The crack of colour against the otherwise dull background finished it off for me. The daily drama played out each morning, and we’re oblivious to it unless we take the time to stop and look.

Colour me unromantic, but I’ve never been one to get into a tizzy for Valentine’s Day, relationship or none. In fact I’m not quite sure where the whole myth popped up from. Doing a bit of research, it seems that nobody really knows much about what a St. Valentine might have done, or might not of done, but it certainly didn’t seem to have too much to do with romancing. There were several martyrs who bore the name, and nobody in the early church seemed to know much about them, including, it seems, the Pope who finally canonized them. He claimed that while their names were known to man, their deeds would remain known only to God. Opaque, at best.

Valentine’s story was fleshed out more in the 14th Century (trust those renaissance folks to come up with a good yarn), where it turns out he was imprisoned by Emperor Claudius. Claudius was quite fond of the saint until the preacher tried to convert the good ruler, at which point Claudius ordered Valentine removed from the realm of the living. When pummelings with clubs and stones didn’t seem to do the trick, the shortly-to-be-martyr was dragged out to a city gate and beheaded. Romantic to the last.

Early sources linking St. Valentine’s Day with lovers is probably more to do with the date than anything about the saint passé. Typically, French courtiers seemed to play a part in the romanticization of the date, with the stakes driven further home by good Bill Shakespeare as the seventeenth century clocked over, during a lament by Hamlet’s hapless love-interest Ophelia. Sources suggest the event has its roots in an ancient pagan tradition held in mid-February dating back to the Romans (who in turn poached it from the Greeks) revolving around sexuality and fertility (those ancients really did like their fertility festivals). In fact the modern habit of card-giving seems to have really taken off in the mid-eighteen-hundreds when a US cardmaker began mass-producing embossed Valentines cards. So really, it’s the original sales-driven holiday. Score one for consumerism. Again.

(That’d make it Consumerism, 8,716,342: Good Taste and Careful Thought: 4).

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t actually dislike Valentine’s Day. At least, not nearly as much as I dislike Christmas. I’m all up for people celebrating their relationships. And no, this isn’t some bitter single’s rant. In fact, quite the contrary- being single on Valentine’s Day is something of a relief, taking away all that pressure to create, to perform, or simply to spend. I guess I just enjoy bringing in a healthy dose of hard cold reality into all the fuss and frills of our unquestioned modern world as it ploughs over the top of us with all the dignity of a mail-truck full of Hallmark cards.

So for all you lovers out there, happy luvin’, and for all the rest, have a great weekend. I’m going to a chilli fair, a farewell barbecue and a wine festival. What about you?

Photo: A dew-spotted rose unfurling in the early morning mist in northern Thailand. Selective desaturation in Lightroom used to break out the colour.

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